$18.6 MM Payday for CEO . Wow.

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Amgen CEO Gets $18.6 Million for 2006
Thursday March 22, 9:09 pm ET
By Paul Elias, AP Biotechnology Writer
Amgen CEO Sharer Collects $18.6 Million in Pay for 2006


Amgen Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Kevin Sharer collected compensation the company valued at $18.6 million in 2006, a year in which the world's largest biotechnology company by sales faced growing criticism of the cost of its cancer-fighting drugs.
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According to the company's proxy statement filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Sharer received just under $1.5 million in salary for the year, plus $4.5 million in bonuses for meeting long-term and short-term objectives.

He was granted stock and option awards that had an estimated value of $11.65 million on the day they were granted.

Sharer received nearly $1 million in perquisites, including more than $300,000 for the use of the company plane and an Amgen-provided car and driver. The company also kicked in $15,000 toward Sharer's financial and tax planning.

The Associated Press calculations of total pay include executives' salary, bonus, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The may vary from totals that companies report.

Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based Amgen has come under fire on Capitol Hill for what it charges Medicare patients for the popular anemia drugs Epogen and Aranesp. Analysts and investors fear that Amgen will be forced to cut its prices and the issue has helped drag down the stock.

Federal health officials also issued stern new warnings on March 9 for doctors to more carefully prescribe widely the drugs, which can increase the risk of death and other serious problems in patients with cancer and kidney disease.

The Food and Drug Administration also said it would take a new look at how the drugs are marketed, including claims they can improve the quality of life of cancer patients.

The company reported its annual profit fell 20 percent to $2.95 billion, or $2.48 a share, compared with the $3.67 billion profit reported for 2005.

The company's stock reached a new 52-week low in after-hours trading Thursday after the company announced it was discontinuing a key test of an experimental drug to treat colon cancer.

At the close of trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, Amgen shares had fallen 13 cents to $60.47. The shares fell an additional $2.62, or 4.3 percent, to $57.85 in extended trading.
 




































Dude, you need to work hard to beat me since I am surfing the net about 80% of the time, that is what you get when you become Exec. Director with no one to oversee.
Thanks Kevin, My family and I love you
 












HEALTH INDUSTRY APRIL 26, 2011.

U.S. Effort to Remove Drug CEO Jolts Firms

By ALICIA MUNDY wsj.com

A government attempt to oust a longtime drug-company chief executive over his company's marketing violations is raising alarms in that industry and beyond about a potential expansion of federal involvement in the business world.

The Department of Health and Human Services this month notified Howard Solomon of Forest Laboratories Inc. that it intends to exclude him from doing business with the federal government. This, in turn, could prevent Forest from selling its drugs to Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration. If the government implements its ban, Forest would have to dump Mr. Solomon, now 83 years old, in order to protect its corporate revenue. No drug company, large or small, can afford to lose out on sales to the federal government, a major customer.

The campaign against drug-company CEOs is part of a larger Obama administration effort to pursue individual executives blamed for wrongdoing rather than simply punishing companies. The government has tried to prosecute Wall Street executives in connection with the 2008 financial crisis, but with limited success.

The Health and Human Services department startled drug makers last year when the agency said it would start invoking a little-used administrative policy under the Social Security Act against pharmaceutical executives. This policy allows officials to bar corporate leaders from health-industry companies doing business with the government, if a drug company is guilty of criminal misconduct. The agency said a chief executive or other leader can be banned even if he or she had no knowledge of a company's criminal actions. Retaining a banned executive can trigger a company's exclusion from government business.

The "action against the CEO of Forest Labs is a game changer," said Richard Westling, a corporate defense attorney in Nashville who has represented executives in different industries against the government.

According to Mr. Westling, "It would be a mistake to see this as solely a health-care industry issue. The use of sanctions such as exclusion and debarment to punish individuals where the government is unable to prove a direct legal or regulatory violation could have wide-ranging impact." An exclusion penalty could be more costly than a Justice Department prosecution.

He said that the Defense Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, have debarment powers similar to the HHS exclusion authority.

The Forest case has its origins in an investigation into the company's marketing of its big-selling antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro. Last September, Forest made a plea agreement with the government, under which it is paying $313 million in criminal and civil penalties over sales-related misconduct.

A federal court made the deal final in March. Forest Labs representatives said they were shocked when the intent-to-ban notice was received a few weeks later, because Mr. Solomon wasn't accused by the government of misconduct.

Forest is sticking by its chief. "No one has ever alleged that Mr. Solomon did anything wrong, and excluding him [from the industry] is unjustified," said general counsel Herschel Weinstein. "It would also set an extremely troubling precedent that would create uncertainty throughout the industry and discourage regulatory settlements."

The pharmaceutical industry has paid billions of dollars in civil and criminal penalties over the past decade, but the government believes they no longer have much deterrent effect.

The new use of exclusion is meant to "alter the cost-benefit calculus of the corporate executives," said Lew Morris, chief counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services's inspector general, in congressional testimony last month.

The move against Forest's Mr. Solomon—its CEO, president and chairman—brings the campaign to a new level. Lawyers not involved in the Forest case said the attempt to punish an executive who isn't accused of misconduct could tie up the industry's day-to-day work in legal knots.

"This 'gotcha' approach to enforcement runs the risk of creating a climate within organizations that is inconsistent with the spirit of innovation that is critical to the industry," said Allen Waxman of Kaye Scholer LLP in New York, who was formerly an in-house counsel at a drug maker.

Mr. Solomon became chief executive in 1977 and built Forest from a maker of vitamin tablets into a global company with more than $4 billion in annual sales.

His son is writer Andrew Solomon, who won a National Book Award in 2001 for his book about struggling with depression. Inspired by his son, Howard Solomon pushed Forest into the antidepressant market and turned Celexa and Lexapro into successes. In the year ending March 2004, the two drugs accounted for about 82% of the company's sales.

In October 2010, HHS outlined how it could use the exclusion tool on individuals without proof of personal misconduct. The first application involved the CEO of a smaller pharmaceutical maker in St. Louis. The executive stepped down. He has since pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor marketing violation and was sentenced to prison and fined.

Forest pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in connection with its marketing of Celexa as a treatment for children and adolescents before the drug won approval for pediatric use from the Food and Drug Administration. The company also paid fines over civil accusations.

Forest assumed it had put the matter behind it after the plea hearing in March. But on April 8, the Health and Human Services inspector general sent the letter declaring its intent to exclude Mr. Solomon from his roles at Forest. Mr. Solomon has 30 days to ask the inspector general to revoke the move, but if he loses and has to take his case to federal court, he may temporarily step down from his job, according to the company. The inspector general's office declined to comment; Mr. Solomon's personal attorney couldn't be reached.

The push to target executives comes in the wake of complaints in Congress that few executives bear the cost for bad corporate behavior. The U.S. has prosecuted only a handful of individuals in the Wall Street meltdown of 2008.

In November 2010, the government indicted a former attorney for GlaxoSmithKline PLC related to allegations of improper marketing of the antidepressant Wellbutrin for weight loss. The lawyer has pleaded not guilty, and her defense counsel has said her actions were based on advice from Glaxo's outside counsel. The company has said it is cooperating with the government.
 






























Look, that money should have been set aside for BHBU bonuses to make up for the bad forecasts and shitty performance comp plan we've had since launch. When is TO going to understand we in the BHBU could save this company financially if we just had a fair bonus system!
 






Look, that money should have been set aside for BHBU bonuses to make up for the bad forecasts and shitty performance comp plan we've had since launch. When is TO going to understand we in the BHBU could save this company financially if we just had a fair bonus system!

They don't need saving the company financially. They have one of the largest corporate cash positions in the U.S. It may help to review the last 1/4 statement.
 






Look, that money should have been set aside for BHBU bonuses to make up for the bad forecasts and shitty performance comp plan we've had since launch. When is TO going to understand we in the BHBU could save this company financially if we just had a fair bonus system!

So you're just mailing it in every day because you don't like the bonus system? Fuck you! Quit! We don't need lazy shitbags like you!
 






So you're just mailing it in every day because you don't like the bonus system? Fuck you! Quit! We don't need lazy shitbags like you!

It is apparent that your off color rants reflect your lack of proper use of English and a very questionable intelligence. Take off your shoes and show us how you count to twenty, including your fingers.